Corporate approach to social media a major #fail?

Too often, archaic strategies undermine the efforts of those with hands-on networking experience

If you watch ABC’s “Desperate Housewives” or TBS’ “My Boys,” you know both shows have delved into the social media realm in recent weeks. The questionable results drove home a larger point about how companies and organizations are handling social media.

On one of the last “Desperate Housewives” episodes of the season, Tom Scavo returned home from a job interview, distraught that he’d “become irrelevant.” He lamented to wife Lynette that he’d been stumped by a question about “(using) ‘Twittering’ as part of a marketing campaign.”

Just a couple of days later, an episode of “My Boys” focused on Facebook. Although the references were accurate, they were outdated — about 18 months too late, probably. I bet there is someone on the show’s staff who, if consulted, would have said, “Shouldn’t we be focusing this episode on Twitter instead? Or at least talking about more current Facebook-related topics? (The never-ending stream of LivingSocial quizzes, perhaps? Or the relatively recent ‘25 things about me’ flood? Terms of service controversy, anyone?)”